An international think tank wants Canada to maintain but refocus its commitment to Afghanistan, as the NDP again called for the Conservative government to rethink the mission.

"The mission in Afghanistan is fundamentally unbalanced," NDP Leader Jack Layton said Tuesday in Parliament's question period.

"Approximately one dollar in aid is spent for every nine dollars on combat ... will the prime minister heed the calls of Canadians, including more and more military families, and rethink this mission?"

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the country's efforts in Afghanistan are multi-faceted.

"Obviously, there remain important security challenges in southern Afghanistan. Those security challenges are the very things that are threatening the well-being and economic development and social development of the people of Afghanistan," he said.

"Which is why we're making sure we can promote security in that part of the country so we can promote development and help the people with the very real challenges that the leader of the NDP mentions."

A paper written by the Senlis Council argues that Canada should be very concerned about the Taliban and al Qaeda's return to Afghanistan -- for Canada's security, if not the Afghan people themselves.

Norine MacDonald, the Canadian who founded the think tank, described Kandahar province as "a complete war zone."

She is the lead field researcher in Kandahar province, which is the Taliban's heartland.

More troublingly, MacDonald said the Taliban there are winning both the military conflict and the battle for hearts and minds of Afghans.

"If we don't change our policy right now ... drastically, we will suffer more losses and we will lose southern Afghanistan," she said.

Having Canada pull out now would make it complicit in a crime against humanity, she said. In addition, the international community would be "making a gift to al Qaeda of a geopolitical home for terrorist extremism" if it pulls out before stabilizing Afghanistan.

The report was actually written in June but released at a symposium in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Controversial policy prescriptions

While she thinks the international community must stay, MacDonald said Canada needs to develop a different military strategy than the one used by the United States in Afghanistan.

"The U.S.-led international community's narrow, homeland security interpretation of security has misdirected urgent development funds towards physical security-related objectives, to the extent that military spending outpaces development and reconstruction spending by a colossal 900 per cent."

Her report includes a chart showing that total military expenditures in Afghanistan were US$82.5 billion between 2002 and 2006. In comparison, development spending totaled US$7.3 billion over that period.

Afghans see foreigners as putting their own security needs ahead of those of Afghans, it said.

"The heavy-handed tactics the international military forces have used to pursue this 'security' has led to severe disillusionment with the international community, and a widespread and deepening distrust of the western world."

Focusing on security and counter-narcotics polices while ignoring extreme poverty is destroying nation-building efforts and aiding the Taliban's revival, it said.

"Our Military base in Kandahar has a Burger King and a Tim Hortons. And 15 minutes away, there are children dying of starvation," said MacDonald.

Some of the policy prescriptions include controversial recommendations like allowing a poppy-licensing system in Afghanistan to grow poppies for the production of pain-killing medications for developing countries.

Opium poppy production, on an acreage basis, increased by 59 per cent, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2006 survey.

Afghanistan provides 92 per cent of the world's opium supply. The 6,100 tonnes of opium is estimated to be worth more than US$50 billion annually.

Brian MacDonald, of the Conference of Defence Associations, said there likely wouldn't be enough incentive for Afghan farmers to participate.

"Mind you,'' he wrote in response to the Senlis paper, "it would only cost about $760 million a year to meet the druglord price, which might well be a bargain.

"On the other hand, the druglords might have a different view of the Senlis buyers and the potential loss of their US $2.3-billion-per-year revenue stream.'' 

MacDonald endorsed the hardline approach of Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Costa wants the Afghan Army and NATO troops to attack the opium trade.

"In the turbulent southern region,'' Costa said, "counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics efforts must reinforce each other so as to stop the vicious circle of drugs funding terrorists and terrorists protecting drug traffickers.''

In a related story, the UN and Afghan government warned Monday that nearly two million people in southern Afghanistan will need food aid this winter because of drought.

Part of the food shortage is also being blamed on the fighting and the cultivation of opium instead of food crops.

With a report by CTV's Roger Smith and files from The Canadian Press